


Etiology Unknown

by sleepyempress



Category: Zombies Run!
Genre: Conspiracy Theories, F/F, Falling In Love, Kidnapping, Medical Horror, Possible Alien Abduction, ZRS3 Spoilers, medical shit in general, x-files au
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-24
Updated: 2016-08-30
Packaged: 2018-08-10 18:41:21
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 10
Words: 12,531
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7856728
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sleepyempress/pseuds/sleepyempress
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Maxine Meyers, FBI medical examiner, has a reputation for solving even the most bizarre cases. When missing person Eugene Woods suddenly reappears miles from home, sans memory and half a leg, she assumes that there must be a simple, logical explanation despite the strange circumstances.</p><p>Then she meets Paula Cohen, biotech researcher, who offers a different explanation: this case is part of a larger pattern of mysterious worldwide abductions. One of which she herself survived. </p><p>As the two become closer, they find themselves at the center of an international conspiracy more complex and dangerous than either could have imagined.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Apology is Policy

**Author's Note:**

  * For [facingthenorthwind (spacegandalf)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/spacegandalf/gifts).



> i know the tag says X-Files AU but i promise you don't have to be a txf fan to enjoy this fic (it will, however, make reading it more fun.) i think zombies run and txf have enough thematic similarities that you should have a good time either way. plot spoilers up to zrs3, character spoilers up to zrs5 if you know what you're looking for. 
> 
> i realize this is probably far off base from and much longer than anyone had in mind but i got an idea and couldn't stop.

 

> _“And I looked, and, behold, a stormy wind came out of the north, a great cloud, with a fire flashing up, so that a brightness was round about it; and out of the midst thereof as the colour of electrum, out of the midst of the fire.” -Ezekiel 1:4_

* * *

 Maxine’s phone goes off sometime between two and three in the morning, and she is instantly relieved to see it is not someone from work but Sam Yao.

More specifically, it is Sam Yao sending her a new picture of a crop circle, with the message “pretty impressive, right????” attached. Maxine chuckles, shakes her head, and stays awake long enough to write “So why are you convinced this one is real?” and chuckles again as her phone indicates Sam is typing something.

“did u listen to that podcast i told you about?”  
“Which one?”  
“jet fuel!!!!!!!!”   
“Is this the WoW one or...?”  
“the conspiracy one”  
“Oh brother”

She’s trying to do the time zone math to figure out where Sam has found the time to send her excited crop circle texts. He must be between university classes, she guesses, and falls asleep thinking not for the first time that this must be what having a kid brother is like.

She wakes an hour later to her phone actually ringing, and this time it is work. It’s not even five in the morning, and she dreads breaking the hermetic seal of her Silver Springs apartment to go wherever she’s supposed to this time, because even this early summer in D.C. is unforgivingly humid.

She hits the answer button, and before she has a chance to say anything, her boss, Diana, starts in: “Missing person showed up near Union Station. We need you to take a look.”

“Missing person?” Maxine repeats as she pulls on her socks, “And you need me because.....?”

Diana sighs softly. Years of experience and successfully resolved cases have taught her Maxine works best on a long leash. She not the usual pick for ordinary cases, but this is not an ordinary case. “It’s more complicated than that,” she says, tone clipped. “We need you over here.” Maxine hears Diana talk to someone in the background. “Please, now.”

The metro is closed so she has to drive into the city. The front plaza of the station is sectioned off by the collection of government and emergency vehicles parked there. The police car is still silently flashing its lights, and the ambulance’s rear doors are spread open. She sees Diana talking with one of the EMTs as she tries to park her car in an unobtrusive way. By the time she’s done, Diana is halfway to her car.

“It’s...bizarre,” she says as she walks Maxine over to the ambulance, “This kid was supposed to be in town for the weekend, disappears for two days, and then he turns up here. No memory of anything.”

“So, you think, what? Drugs? Failed kidnapping?”

“Most kidnappers don’t start out by chopping off half their abductee’s limb.”

“What?”  


“Look,” Diana says as she passes Maxine the EMT’s paperwork. 

As she scans the chart Maxine realizes she has not had enough coffee to deal with any of this. _Name: Woods, Eugene Benjamin. Hair: brown. Eyes: brown._ The EMT leads her into the back of the ambulance. _Height: appx. 6’ 4”. Weight: appx. 170 lbs._ He’s lying on a stretcher, covered in blankets, probably sedated, given the IV he’s hooked up to and the fact that he’s sound asleep. His home is listed as somewhere in Canada, and as Diana begins to turn to talk to other people, she shouts, “If Interpol or the Mounties or whoever else tries to turn up, send them away!”

Diana smiles wryly, closes the ambulance doors, and Maxine returns her attention to the sleeping Eugene Woods.

“Did he say anything?” she asks the EMT.

“Not really. Still delirious from shock, probably. Didn’t understand what was going on. Got his information from the cards he had from his wallet” he says, then checks the IV. “We’re lucky we got here before he lost too much blood.”

“What happened?”

“Someone.....amputated half his leg.”

“Someone amputated half his leg and left him to bleed out in public?”

“It looks that way from what we can tell.”

“May I?” she asks, and gestures at the bottom corner of the blanket.

He nods, and Maxine pulls back the blankets to reveal one foot, still wearing a sock and a sneaker, and one stump below the knee wrapped in bandages.

“Do a tox screen. Do _a thorough_ tox screen.”

The EMT nods, and she resumes looking through the paperwork, though there’s not much more left to glean. The ride silently until they reach the hospital, where more staff comes to unload Eugene and wheel him in for intake procedures and preliminary examination. Maxine is considering calling Veronica, her lab assistant, to figure out what they should focus on testing for, but part of her is immediately against it. Prodigy international exchange medical student or not, she is only sixteen, and she needs to sleep. 

She does check her phone to find a distraught message from Sam.

“WHAT HAPPENED TO JACK’S BOYFRIEND????????????????”

She knows Sam is really upset when he opts out of emojis and doubles down on punctuation. 

“What?”  
“there’s a rumour he was kidnapped!!! in washington!!!! that is by u right”  
“Who is Jack?”  
“u would know if you listened to my podcast recs”  
“Pretend I didn’t. This one time.”  
“he’s one of the hosts of jet fuel and the internet is saying his bf got kidnapped”  
“Who is his boyfriend?”  
“eugene woods”

Maxine wonders morbidly if this will be the longest day of her life. 

 

 


	2. Nothing Important Happened Today

It’s dark by the time Maxine is preparing to leave the hospital lab. She’d waited a few hours to call in Veronica, who has since spent most of the day checking the initial results and conducting a few tests of her own. She’s hunched over a microscope, looking at one of Eugene’s blood samples for the fourth time, and Maxine has to fight a powerful urge to put an affectionate hand on her shoulder. Veronica doesn’t like to be touched; Maxine knows this, but at the same time she reminds Maxine so much of herself in med school. She was never exactly a prodigy, going into med school at the standard age after a bachelor’s in biology and a Spanish minor, and Veronica is in med school and barely old enough for a driver’s license. 

 She herself has been going up and down hospital floors all day, talking with the nurses tending Eugene, hospital staff, the police officers from the scene, the agents and detectives from the D.C. police and FBI. She knows Diana doesn’t really have the power to stop Canadian or international authorities from investigating this case if they want to, but their absence may indicate that this case isn’t high on their list of priorities. It’s strange, but no one is dead, large sums of money aren’t involved, and the police don’t have any solid leads. She hasn’t talked to Eugene himself, but from the officers she spoke with told her, he woke up sometime in the afternoon and still can’t remember anything. None of them can guess with confidence what happened but have promised to nonetheless check case databases to see if there’s a drug or gang connection.

Who knows if they’ll actually come up with anything. Maxine rubs her eyes as she checks the lab results they have so far. Eugene hasn’t tested positive for anything other than opiates and sedatives, and that’s mostly from what he’s been given since he was found. Nothing indicates infection or any other injuries, internal or external. Part of her hopes he’ll remember something helpful once he’s weaned off most of the pain medication. The medical evidence she’s gotten so far offers no clues. Part of her hopes she’ll figure out what exams or tests they need to do and crack the case while the police are still stumbling through their databases.

That’s happened before. She’s seen some things--bizarre, sometimes horrifying things--over the course of her career with the FBI. She’d figured out a homeless man in Colorado had died one winter after drinking antifreeze in an attempt to avoid hypothermia. There was that string of cases across Florida, Alabama, and Mississippi where people had--intentionally or not--gotten high off bath salts and suddenly become violent. She’d actually seen it happen, seen someone almost bite a police officer, and for a second wondered if she was watching patient zero of the zombie apocalypse. Those incidents, thankfully, were the result of Chinese imports not up to American safety standards, some kids experimenting with drugs, and a few unfortunate coincidences.

She reviews the lab work again. Maybe Eugene was just caught in another unfortunate coincidence. Her phone buzzes, and her first reaction is to wonder how it got so late.

“Veronica,” she says, loud enough to get her assistant’s attention, “Why don’t you head home? I can close up here.”

“Are you sure? I still--

 “You have class tomorrow,” Maxine says, and Veronica knows better to argue. She begins to pack up as Maxine remembers the reason she looked at her phone to begin with.

It’s a text message, not from a panicked Sam Yao, but Diana.

“Pandora Haze consultant wants to talk with you about case. Called me to say she’s at the hospital. Ground floor. Please talk to her. May be urgent.”

Maxine tries to suppress an automatic groan. She’s never been good at working closely with other people on a case. Even fresh out of Quantico, she’d never really endeared herself to other FBI personnel. Too many seemed to be men who either felt uncomfortable when she worked better or faster than they could or otherwise had tried to flirt with her and were put off when she told them flatly that she was gay. There were a few exceptions, of course. Diana herself had been bounced around between apartments and wasn’t the warmest person, and she soon learned that Maxine worked perfectly fine on her own. The constantly changing cast of local police and state authorities as she worked cases across the country were generally fine. She’d been intensely dubious when Veronica had asked to be her assistant but changed her mind the second they’d met in person.

Maybe this consultant will be helpful and easy to work with, but Maxine doubts it. Veronica leaves, and Maxine collects the lab reports and samples she’ll take back to the FBI lab tomorrow. She rubs the back of her neck, trying to work away the stiffness, as she takes the elevator down to the ground floor. It occurs to her she has no idea who this consultant is or where she’ll be waiting. The hospital is definitely emptying out for the night, but that doesn’t make it any smaller or less convoluted.

She’s been five seconds on the ground floor, deciding where to look, when someone taps her on the shoulder and she almost jumps.

“Are you Dr. Meyers?”

The voice sounds tired, with a British accent similar to Veronica’s, and Maxine turns to see a woman with tawny hair. She’s a few inches taller than Maxine and wears khaki pants and a blouse with rolled up sleeves. It’s hard to place her age at first. She can’t be much older than Maxine, but her weary expression makes her look years older. The tiredness in her voice makes it sounds like she’s lived a hundred years.

“Are you the Pandora Haze consultant?” Maxine fires back reflexively.

“Yes,” the woman says, extending her hand. “I’m Dr. Paula Cohen.” 

_Another doctor,_ Maxine thinks as she shakes it, wondering why Pandora Haze sent her over this late.

“What can I do for you?” she asks. She tries to keep the fatigue from creeping into her voice, but in any case, Dr. Cohen is much more tired than she is.

“It’s more what I can do for you. I came a long way to speak with you.”

“How far is a long way?”

“England.”

“So Pandora Haze has an interest in this case?”

“Not as much as I have a personal interest.”

 That makes sense. Pandora Haze is an international biotech company that has offices in the U.S., probably even in D.C. itself. They could have easily sent someone much closer.

“And you came all the way across the Atlantic because.....?”

“I know what happened to Eugene Woods.”

Maxine involuntarily raises her eyebrows. “What happened to Eugene?” she repeats, softly. She scans the room too late to see if anyone’s trying to eavesdrop, but the elevator area is empty.

“The same thing that happened to me. He was abducted.”

“Yes, we know he was abducted.”

“No, he was _abducted._ ”

“I don’t understand.”

A pause.

“Dr. Meyers, do you believe in aliens?”

“You’re joking. I’m being Punk’d or something.”

Paula laughs dryly. “I’m afraid not. Let me explain from the beginning. Somewhere more private.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> both the cases referenced in this chapter are based on actual events because i collect weird shit like hannibal lecter collects church collapses


	3. Everything Dies

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> fun fact: i wrote this chapter with a migraine

Paula decides that the hospital cafeteria will work well enough. Only a few of the tables are occupied, and the place is probably going to close soon. She hopes she can get through all this information quickly enough that they won’t be disturbed. Maxine’s expressions is still the same look of calculated indifference. This could go either way.

They find a table in the corner, under a gently flickering fluorescent light, and Paula sets her satchel on the table. She thought about how she was going to do this, was even composing a speech in her head while she was on the plane, but now it seems to have all flown out of her head.

She doesn’t know what she was expecting the FBI medical examiner to be like, but somehow it wasn’t Dr. Meyers, this black woman who speaks with the slightest hint of a drawl and who radiates competence and intelligence and could probably perform a tracheotomy with just a ballpoint pen and---

_Of course she’s cute,_ Paula chides herself. Chides fate.  _Of course she would be cute._

This could be one of the most important conversations of her life and all Paula can think about in this moment is how to make Dr. Meyers talk again so she can see the tiny gap between her front teeth.

The files. Right. Paula clears her throat. Serious voice. She can do this.

“Our friend Eugene isn’t the first person who’s disappeared and reappeared under these circumstances.” She opens her satchel and pulls out a few manilla folders, noting with satisfaction that Dr. Meyers’ eyes widen when she sees what’s stamped across them. “Over the last few years, police forces worldwide have begun reporting an increasing number of unexplained abductions.”

She opens the file on the top of the stack. Police reports: Budapest, Barcelona, Copenhagen, Seoul, Shanghai, Canberra, Chicago, Lagos, Monterrey. Mostly people in their twenties and thirties, a few children. “Like Eugene, they disappear for a few days, then reappear suddenly, often miles from where they went missing. Most have no memory of what happened. Lost time.”

“How can you be sure these cases are connected?”

“We’re not sure about all of them, but what attracted Pandora Haze’s attention is what happened afterward.” She opens the next file. Medical reports. “Some of them became sick. People who had been perfectly healthy a few months ago began reporting neurological symptoms, organ damage, strange cysts.” She flips through a few documents. “Some of them have since died.” Paula has read some of these reports so many times that she has them memorized. Maggie Doane, catastrophic organ failure, April. Alice Dempsey, hemorrhagic stroke, last November. The cases in the UK always stick with her the most. Close to home.

“Wait, you said this happened to you too. That you were.....” Dr. Meyers is looking at her with a mix of suspicion and concern, as if she’s worried that Paula too will drop dead in her cafeteria seat.

“I didn’t realize anyone was collecting information on these cases until I started searching databases after....after...it happened to me.” Paula stares at her hands, folded on the table, and she realizes how much she wished she had something to drink--a glass of water, maybe something warm like tea or coffee--something to wrap her fingers around while she talks.

She steels herself and tries again. “I was in my apartment one night, and the next thing I remember I was lying on a park bench. Four days had gone by. No one could figure out what had happened or who had taken me.” She flips to the last medical file. Her own. “Within a month, both my kidneys had failed. I’m on dialysis until I can get a transplant. My liver looks like a seventy-year-old alcoholic’s. No medical explanation for any of it.” She points at the notes on her file. Etiology unknown.

Dr. Meyers makes a noise like she’s considering saying something, but Paula keeps going. She has to get all this out, before the other woman can pass judgement on her story. “I was desperate for any clue about what had happened to me. I saw specialists, psychiatrists, acupuncturists, tried meditation, special diets, hired a private investigator, talked to MI6. Then--and I know how ridiculous it sounds--I tried hypnotherapy.”

“Hypnotism?”  


“Regression hypnotherapy. To see if I could recover memories of my abduction.”

Dr. Meyers raises an eyebrow. “What happened?”

“It worked. It worked more than anything else had, at least.” There is no file for this part. She looks Dr. Meyers in the eye. “I remember a bright light in the sky, outside my kitchen window, moving closer and closer to me. I was holding a coffee mug and then I--I lost control of my body. I dropped it, and then I floated into the light. I know regression hypnosis can encourage false memories if someone is suggestible, but when I was cleaning my apartment, I found the shards of that mug in the kitchen.”

No change in Dr. Meyers’ expression. Paula keeps going before she can stop herself.

“Again, I know how ridiculous this story sounds. If I were in your position, I don’t know that I would believe it either. But no one else can explain what happened to me or these other people. I’ve researched alien abductions. The similarities between them and these cases are hard to ignore.” She has a whole folder with reports, considers opening up that one too, but realizes that eyewitness reports and UFO drawings will probably not help her case here.

Dr. Meyers is looking at her own hands, apparently in deep concentration. When she speaks, she chooses her words carefully. “You said you had a personal interest in this case specifically. Why?”

“I’ve read about your work. Read your journal articles. When I heard you’d been assigned to an abduction case, I knew I had to speak with you. I think this is my best chance to get answers. If you don’t mind me consulting on your case.”

Now Dr. Meyers looks even more confused. “Why me? I’m a medical examiner, not a special agent or investigator. I’m not really even trained for field work.”

“You have experience with strange cases. You’re competent, thorough, and from what I’ve heard, you’ve been able to solve cases with medical evidence before your colleagues in the field have finished investigating them. I’m not asking you to believe everything I’ve told you or even to like me. I want to help you do your job so we can both get answers.”

 She’s not quite convinced, Paula can tell. She’s gotten enough experience over the past few months to gauge whether or not someone believes what she’s just told them. Which is why she’s surprised when Dr. Meyers says, “You’re right. I don’t believe you, but I will work with you.”

Paula begins putting away the files, and Maxine extends her hand. They share a handshake.

“Thank you,” Paula says, and her voice is faint with relief.

* * *

In a dark room far away, a woman lights a cigarette. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> it's okay paula i think maxine is mad cute too


	4. Believe to Understand

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i literally researched world of warcraft for this

Maxine goes home that night with the feeling that she has made a mistake. 

Dr. Cohen has given her some of the files to examine at her leisure, and they currently sit on her sofa. Maxine doesn’t know when she’ll feel like reading them, or if she ever will.

It’s easily past ten when she finally got home, both exhausted and antsy. She doesn’t want to think about work but doesn’t want to sleep. Briefly she considers playing Warcraft--Sam might even be up right now, given how erratic his schedule is. They could explore together, do dailies, something. The thought brings to mind enough pleasant memories for the corners of her mouth to perk up.

She and Sam had met on WoW as members of the same guild. He was a rogue, she was a shaman, and after a few raids in the same party they realized they worked well together, started playing together regularly with a few mutual friends. They became friends outside the context of the game. Maxine is an only child, but every time they talk she’s convinced this is what having a sibling would feel like. (Sam does have an older sister, but he has told Maxine she’s much better at video games.)

Maxine wasn’t able to tell him much about Eugene, given the fact the case is still under investigation and so strange, but she did receive a string of what appeared to be relieved emojis for her troubles.

She ultimately decides to watch TV while picking at a microwave dinner for an hour or so until tiredness wins over and she decides to try to sleep. As much as she tries to stop them, the things Dr. Cohen told her and the medical reports that are sitting on her couch won’t leave her mind. She can picture Dr. Cohen’s own paperwork hazily in her head. _Cohen, Paula. Etiology unknown._

 She falls asleep resolving to talk to Diana in the morning.

* * *

 As a rule, any day Maxine isn’t woken up before eight in the morning is a good day, so today starts out as a good day.

When she first checks her phone, there are no new urgent messages demanding her attention. Eugene Woods is still okay, no one new has disappeared, and there are no metaphorical fires to be put out. So far.

She gets to work early to open up the lab and secure a conversation with Diana. Maybe her doubts will go away once she gets a second opinion, she thinks to herself as she knocks on her boss’s office door.

“Come in,” Diana says, and Maxine opens the door to find her elbows deep in paperwork. The formal atmosphere contrasts with how strangely casual Diana usually behaves. Maxine doubts few people here are on first-name terms with their superiors.

“How was the meeting with the Pandora Haze consultant?” she asks when she looks up.

“That’s what I wanted to talk to you about,” Maxine says. “It was...strange.”

“I apologize for foisting this on you, but the request came from above my station, and I couldn’t ignore it.”

“If I didn’t know her credentials, I would have thought she was one of those conspiracy theorists from the internet.”

“All I can tell you is she’s consulted extensively for the British police and MI6, and from what I’ve heard, they liked her. Like I said, I was more or less told to put her with you.”

“Why?”

“Ask her yourself.” Diana shuffles some papers. “I know this will probably be challenging, but my hands are tied.”

It’s not the conversation Maxine was hoping for, but she doubts she’ll get much more if she pushes farther. “Thanks,” she says as she turns to leave.

“I tried,” Diana says with a shrug.

Maxine goes to open up the lab. The hospital has sent over the Eugene’s latest lab work and some blood samples. At least she can compare them to yesterday’s and figure out where to go from there.

She has Dr. Cohen’s files in her bag with her. To give them back, she keeps telling herself. They make her tote bag seem strangely heavy, somehow, in a way that has nothing to do with the weight of the paper. She thinks about what Dr. Cohen told her yesterday and wonders if Eugene, like those other people, will suddenly fall ill. She wonders if she can do anything about it.

She’s started the centrifuge spinning with one of the blood samples when she gets a knock on the lab door. Her automatic reaction is that she hasn’t called Veronica to come in yet, but as she goes to turn the handle she realizes who must be on the other side of the door.

Sure enough, Dr. Cohen is standing outside, her hand still tentatively raised. She looks better than she did last night, better rested. She’s got her satchel with her again, which seems to be full with more files and paperwork, and in her other hand she’s holding--

“I’m sorry I was late. I had to go back to the hospital first to get these.”

She holds up two sealed plastic bags. One contains a crumpled mess of dirty bandages. The other looks like strands of dark hair. Maxine looks at the bags, then at Dr. Cohen, who seems to be waiting for her to say something.

“Oh, um, no problem.”

Dr. Cohen recognizes her confusion and flushes slightly. “Right. That was the part I forgot to tell you about.” She stands sheepishly in the doorway for an awkward moment until Maxine realizes she’s waiting for her to invite her in, which she does with a shaky jerk of her hand.

“May I?” Dr. Cohen asks, gesturing to the metal examination table.

“Sure,” Maxine says as she watches the other woman set the bags and her satchel on the metal surface. She opens the latter and produces more manilla folders.

“I apologise for not telling you everything last night, but I couldn’t be sure we wouldn’t be overheard,” she says, checking the labels on the files. She takes one from the bottom and puts it on the top of the stack, opening it to reveal what Maxine instantly recognizes as lab work. Microscopic views of blood cells, karyotypes, pages full of handwritten notes.

“After I was abducted, I started doing my own research. On myself.”

“What did you find?”

“At first I was trying to see if I was developing any health problems, but then I....I still don’t know how to explain the results.” She takes a shaky breath. “My genetic code...it started changing.” She slides a page full of karyotypes across the table to Maxine, differences circled in blue ballpoint pen.

“Gene editing? Even with the latest experimental treatments, changes like this--

“--Aren’t supposed to be possible,” Dr. Cohen finishes her sentence. “I don’t know the full extent of the changes. The before pictures I have here are based on old hair samples I took from my hairbrush. They aren’t complete, but....” she trails off as she flips through more papers, to a page with long strings of text Maxine guesses must be genetic sequences, based on the repeating letters. “I tried to sequence as many of the changed segments as I could. I cross-referenced them with everything in Pandora Haze’s databases, then MI6’s. As far as I know....these don’t match the genetic code of any living creature on earth.”

Maxine watches her stare down at her work. She seems lost for a moment, and Maxine wonders if she’s supposed to prod her out of whatever trance this is, but then her hand moves for the plastic bags, and the moment passes.

“It made me think,” she starts again, “We could check Eugene’s genetic code for any changes.”

“Sure, we can test the hair. Is the sample fresh?”

Dr. Cohen nods. “What made me so interested in this case is that Eugene’s abductors amputated part of his leg,” she says as she reaches for the bag with bandages. “I thought they might have tried to abort whatever procedure they were trying and removed the test area for damage control. These,” she says as she lifts the bag, “were some of the first bandages applied to his wound when your police found him yesterday morning.”

It’s certainly a....unique mental image. Maxine’s amazed Dr. Cohen was able to get her hands on day’s old discarded bandages but shudders to imagine what doing so entailed. Sifting through biohazardous trash, maybe. Then she remembers Eugene, how he’s probably still at the hospital, about the phantom limb pain he’ll have to cope with.

“So, you think, what--the aliens played doctor, panicked, and got out the bone saw?”

Dr. Cohen’s expression turns stony, and Maxine realizes she’s made a mistake. “It’s a joke.”

“Oh,” says Dr. Cohen, unconvinced.

* * *

By late afternoon, the genetic tests are underway. Maxine has called in Veronica to keep an eye on things while she studies for a physiology test. She introduced her to Dr. Cohen with unsuspected success, and listened in polite, silent confusion as the two talked about places with very English-sounding names and careers with the NIH. She’s never seen Veronica open up so much in a conversation that wasn’t about niche aspects of microbiology, though she supposes if she was in a foreign country and met an another American by chance, she’d feel the same way. 

“Would you like to go out to lunch?” Maxine asks Dr. Cohen. “I can’t remember the last time I had a good meal, with work and everything.” She can afford to take a long lunch break, after all the work she’s done this week.

“Sure,” Dr. Cohen says, with barely-concealed surprise. “All right.”

They take the metro into the city, which Maxine struggles not to instantly to regret, given the way the heat amplifies the smell of urine in the subway tunnels. “There are really good food trucks on the National Mall this time of day,” she explains as they wait for their train to arrive. “Do you like falafel? Because I checked, and that truck is supposed to be here today.” She’s looking for words to fill the silence, but Dr. Cohen doesn’t seem to mind.

They find the orange falafel truck outside the Air and Space Museum, a significant walk that seems perfectly justified to Maxine when she takes her first bite of her falafel sandwich. She and Dr. Cohen sit on a bench under the best patch of shade they can find. Maxine has rolled up the legs of her slacks into impromptu capris and watches as Dr. Cohen finishes her own sandwich. She can’t remember the last time she went out to lunch with someone. The last time she went on a date, maybe.

She notices Dr. Cohen has rolled up the sleeves of her own blouse, and unbuttoned the top few buttons to reveal something small glinting on a golden chain. Too late Maxine realizes that Dr. Cohen has caught her staring and says clumsily, “I like your necklace.”

Dr. Cohen’s free hand goes to her collarbone to touch the tiny Star of David. “Oh,” she says softly. “Thank you.” She stares down at the remnants of her pita and tabouli salad. Then, almost as an afterthought, “I hadn’t really been practicing, but after everything happened, it made about as much sense as anything else. Another place to find answers, maybe.”

Maxine thinks about her own religious upbringing, the Sundays she spent in church, the whisper of bills in the collection tray, the way the choir and the musicians could make the floor shake, coffee and donuts after service. She’d stopped going at the height of one of her attempts at teenage rebellion, to the chagrin of her mother. Stopped even thinking about going once she’d come out to herself. She’s trying to count how many years ago that was when Paula asks if they should be heading back.

“Sure,” she says, and this time they spend the metro ride in what Maxine could almost describe as companionable silence.


	5. Deny Everything

“So how does a biotech researcher become a consultant for MI6?”

Paula knew this question was going to happen eventually. She doesn’t know what Dr. Meyer’s superiors have told her. She herself knows less about what’s going on than she would freely admit. Sometimes she still sits up at night in her D.C. hotel room, amazed that Pandora Haze allowed her to consult on this case, even partially covered her expenses.

They’re back at the FBI lab, it’s the two of them, a few days after the initial genetic tests. Being forced to spend so much time together has done wonders to chip away at the initial awkwardness between Paula and Dr. Meyers. Which is probably why she feels comfortable asking a more personal question.

“I was researching possible methods of bioterrorism, and they wanted some suggestions for emergency response plans. It was years ago. Some people there took a liking to me, I suppose. I would be much farther behind on this research,” she gestures to the newest karyotype printouts, “if I hadn’t had access to their resources.”

“Did you ever consult on anything top secret?” Dr. Meyer’s tone is unexpectedly playful. She’s been careful to soften anything that could come across as too insensitive, Paula’s noticed. Paula doesn’t want to clam up so much as hide what is probably a faint blush spreading across her cheeks.

“You work for the FBI. Have you ever worked on anything secret?” she fires back, secretly pleased she was able to come up with a good repartee so quickly.

“Unless someone sending baking soda through the mail and trying to pass it off as anthrax counts, no.” She can hear the hint of a smile in Dr. Meyers’ voice. “I just get the weird things.”

“I did meet some secret agents. I think,” Paula offers.

“You’re kidding.”

“I can’t be sure, but they seemed like they could be.”

 “My boss said some high-level people were pushing for us to work together,” Dr. Meyers says. “Do you think it was them?”

Paula laughs quietly. “Now you’re joking.”

“No, that’s what she told me.”

“That’s....no, that wouldn’t make sense.”

“Why not? It sounds like they like you.”

“After I...got sick, my performance at work suffered. Suffered greatly. I've stopped consulting for the British government entirely. I was worried Pandora Haze was about to let me go. I asked them if I could consult with you as a last resort. I never expected them to let me.” She twists and errant lock of hair around her finger. “Maybe they’re waiting me to fail here so they can fire me.”

“They’d really let you go just because you have health problems?”

“It’s not just that. I know some of the management don’t approve of what I’ve been doing. Pandora Haze has worked on very cutting-edge and unusual projects, but these abduction cases are a little too out there. The board has complained to my superiors. I do know that.”

“So this is all a giant conspiracy to get rid of you?”

 “It sounds silly when you put it that way.”

“I used to think things like that when I got into fights with some of the agents here,” Dr. Meyers says. “I was such a hothead out of Quantico. It was like I was some rebellious teenager again. I’m lucky I’m good at this job, or I don’t know if I’d still have it.”

“You? A hothead?”

“I wanted people to take me seriously and prove that I knew what I was doing.”

“They couldn’t tell just by looking at you?”

Paula can’t be sure, but for a second she could swear Dr. Meyers was the one who blushed.

* * *

 Every time Paula asks Dr. Meyers if the FBI has made any headway on Eugene’s case, the answer is still no. By this time he’s been discharged from the hospital and back in Canada, where his own doctor is supposed to provide them with any necessary updates. There’s been little news from that end, either.

Paula can never think about him without wondering when or if he’ll get sick like she did. She’d never met him in person, not really, even when she’d got the samples and talked with his care team at the hospital. She’d only seen him briefly, propped up in his hospital bed, from a distance. She hopes she’ll never have to see him again, that nothing else bad will happen to him, but she knows that is an awful lot to hope.

His test results haven’t shown any significant changes. His last set of bloodwork before he returned home was normal. His DNA appears intact. For now. Dr. Meyers has promised to emphasize to Eugene’s doctor the importance of continued monitoring and checkups. Now they all have to play a very morbid waiting game.

Paula’s increasingly worried that her own time in D.C. is running out. It’s been at least a week now, and progress on this or any other case has been minimal. She’s gone to the dialysis center on K Street three times now. This was part of the traveling expenses Pandora Haze didn’t cover, and she won’t be looking forward to the final bill. Especially if she does end up losing her job.

So when she gets the e-mail, she is immediately intrigued.

It’s only a few sentences: “Meet me at the Comansys Office on midnight Wednesday. Bring your colleague. I have information regarding your case. Tell no one else.”

A few things are obviously strange. First, the message was sent to her personal, not her work inbox, and she hasn’t given that address out since she signed up for HBO Go. (The new _Game of Thrones_ season had just started. She had to.)

Second, it comes from a Comansys company account belonging to an Albert Goodall. A quick search on Comansys’ American website reveals no employee by that name. 

Then, there’s the question of why a tech company currently preoccupied with trying to promote its new social network and set of mobile apps would know anything about international alien activity or her own investigation.

Still, it’s a lead.

She spends the entire evening wondering how to broach the subject to Dr. Meyers, but when she opens the doors to the FBI lab the next morning, the look on the other woman’s face tells her she won’t have to.

“So you got one too.”


	6. All Lies Lead to the Truth

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i also wrote this chapter with a migraine because sometimes life is hard but you gotta rock and roll anyway

It’s Wednesday night and Maxine is sure she is making a mistake but can’t stop herself. She took the metro into the city, met Dr. Cohen in one of the stations, and now they’re in the northwest section of the city, walking past closed buildings with glass exteriors, the lights inside them dimmed. Some of the drug stores are still open, devoid of customers. She has always found it funny how embassies can be sandwiched between liquor stores and Dunkin Donuts. Diplomats get hungry too, she supposes. 

In one pocket she has her badge, and in the other her pistol. She was taught how to shoot years ago, when she when she was still in training, had to occasionally go down to the shooting range to make sure her skills were still sharp. She seldom carried it, given that most of her work involved lab work, medical reports, and autopsies, save a few times she was called out to the field and felt the need to take precautions. Times like now.

She’d spent hours debating whether to tell Diana, whether to call Dr. Cohen and cancel the whole thing. Maybe this was all an elaborate ruse and no one would show, and she could take a taxi back home, and that would be that. That’s what she had planned on, anyway.

Maxine knows this is nonetheless a huge risk, even if she won’t admit it to herself. This sort of cloak and dagger, special agent thing isn’t her department, but the actual special agents have made little headway in this case. She considered tipping them off anyway, but that felt wrong. Dr. Cohen has placed an enormous amount of trust in her, and even if she’s off the wall, Maxine can recognize her brilliance. Disregarding any of that seems cruel. Something is clearly going on, even though Maxine doubts it has anything to do with the supernatural. The sooner she can help Dr. Cohen find answers, the sooner she can get back to her normal life.

The night is velvet dark and still warm. She can feel herself sweating under her jacket but decides she’s not going to take it off. Dr. Cohen is dressed more lightly, blouse slightly unbuttoned again, her hands in her pockets.

The Comansys office is small and surprisingly nondescript, save for the glass walls revealing a tastefully minimalist lobby. Most of their American labs are supposed to be on the west coast, so this place is probably just office space. It’s across the street from an oddly charming sandwich shop and flanked by less attractive office buildings.

Maxine follows Paula as they come to a halt before the locked glass doors. The lobby looks empty. She tries the door handle. Locked.

“So we just wait here?” she asks.

“I don’t see what else we can do,” Dr. Cohen says.

They stand in silence for a few minutes. Maxine checks the time. Three after midnight. Dr. Cohen removes a hand from her pocket and fluffs her hair. Five after midnight. Each minute feels uncomfortably long. Eleven after. Maxine wonders how long they’ll have to wait before it’s acceptable to bow out. With her luck she’ll get some call from work a few hours from now, have to fly out somewhere else to look at some new weird murder, some new mix of street drugs, some new--

The glass wall behind her shatters. A popping noise. Before she’s completely aware of what she’s doing, she’s tackled Dr. Cohen onto the ground and starts rummaging through her pocket to get a grip on her weapon. Another shot. Two, three, four. She’s trying to figure out where they’re coming from when she glances at Dr. Cohen, whose face is blank and ashen. She doesn’t seem hurt. Dimly Maxine realizes an alarm from somewhere inside the building has started blaring.

“We need to leave!” Maxine shouts above the noise. With her free hand she finds Dr. Cohen’s wrist, and they start crawling along the sidewalk, towards the cover of some decorative trees.

Another shot. Now that they’re closer to the street, Maxine can see movement on the other side and further down the block, where a car is parked. She raises her pistol, fires one shot that breaks one of the sandwich shop’s windows, then aims again and fires two in the direction of the car. Now two security alarms are wailing. Maxine hears retreating footsteps and tires as the car drives away.

The minute they wait for their attackers to leave is the longest of Maxine’s life. Then she remembers her hand is wrapped around Dr. Cohen’s wrist. Dr. Cohen, who is physically shaking.

“We need to leave,” she says again, softer. “Can you run?”

“Yes,” Dr. Cohen says, barely above a whisper.

They run for blocks. Maxine loses count of how many. They’re view of the Lincoln Memorial by the time she feels safe enough to stop. Dr. Cohen drops to her knees on the grass, panting furiously.

“I should have known,” she says after she regains her breath. “I should have known it would be a trap.”

“You couldn’t have known,” Maxine says.

“I could have guessed.”

“We can talk about it later. We need to find a taxi and get you back to your hotel.”

Dr. Cohen is sitting on the grass now, hugging her knees, staring at the distant silhouette of the Washington Monument. “No, not tonight. I need to get out of the city.”

Maxine sits cross-legged on the grass next to her. She’s sweaty and itchy and exhausted and really, really wants to take a shower. She makes the offer before she really realizes what she’s doing. “I live in Silver Springs. Is that far away enough?”

She has no idea if Dr. Cohen knows where that is, but she nods slightly and says yes. Maxine takes out her phone and calls for a taxi, and fifteen minutes they are in the back seat together of a cab driven by a man with a pleasant accent Maxine can’t place. When they get to her apartment, her hands shake slightly as she pulls out her key and unlocks the door. It’s messy and could use a good cleaning, but Maxine is too tired to pretend to be embarrassed.

“Will you be okay on the couch?” she asks.

Dr. Cohen walks over and pats the cushions experimentally. “Yes.”

“Do you want to shower first? You can borrow something of mine for pajamas.”

“Go ahead,” Dr. Cohen says. She seems to be absorbed with the contents of Maxine’s living room, and too late Maxine realizes at her collection of figurines on one of the shelves. So much for Dr. Cohen ever thinking she’s cool.

A shower does wonders for her mood. That seems to be one constant, even if the reason she worked up a sweat was running for her life. As she’s getting extra pillows and blankets from the linen closet for Dr. Cohen, she realizes with a dull pang of dread that she’ll have to tell Diana tomorrow about what happened.

When she returns to the living room, Dr. Cohen is leafing through the reading material strewn across her coffee table. Maxine’s still subscribed to a few medical journals and a couple of science magazines for fun, even if she usually only has time to flip through them to look at the pictures. Dr. Cohen seems preoccupied with some infographic about space exploration and doesn’t notice her approach.

“Dr. Cohen?” she asks.

She drops the magazine at the sound of Maxine’s voice.

“Shower’s free,” Maxine offers. “And these are for you.” She extends the bundle of folded blankets, topped with a pillow and an oversize t-shirt for sleepwear.

“Thank you,” Dr. Cohen says absently and retreats to the bathroom.

Maxine goes to her own room and sits on her bed. She’s thankful she remembered to add fabric softener to her laundry this week; the smell is comfortable. Once she hears the shower stop and the bathroom door open, she goes back out to the living room to do the proper hostess thing and make sure Dr. Cohen is comfortable.

“Do you want to talk about what happened?” she asks.

“Tomorrow,” Dr. Cohen says.

“Do you want anything to help you sleep?”

“I think I’ll be fine, thank you.”

“Good night, then,” Maxine says. She’s about to turn to leave when Dr. Cohen speaks up again.

“You just saved my life. You can call me Paula.”

Maxine pauses for a moment. “Then you can call me Maxine.”

“All right. Good night, Maxine.”

“Good night, Paula.”

Maxine likes how the sound of her name rolls off her tongue.


	7. Resist or Serve

Dr. Cohen--no, Paula--is already awake when Maxine walks into the living room toward the kitchen to make coffee.

 “Did you sleep?” Maxine asks.

“A little,” Paula says.

“I don’t know what kind of dialysis diet you’re on, but if there’s nothing here you can eat, I can get you something on the way to work--if you want to go into work. You don’t have to if you don’t feel like it. I could take you back to your hotel. There’s not a lot of work to do at the lab today. I was going to catch up on paperwork.” She’s babbling; Maxine can feel sleep deprivation and fear loosening her grip on her composure.

Paula’s sitting upright on her couch, already dressed, one of Maxine’s blankets folded around her shoulders as she stares at her folded hands.

“Will they take you off the case because of what happened?”

 Maxine rubs the sleep from her eyes. “Nothing like this has ever happened to me before. I don’t know. I’ll have to tell my boss.” She moves her fingers to rub her forehead. “I’m so sorry you got mixed up in all of this.”

“I chose to come here,” Paula says.

Silence hangs between them for a moment.

“Can I make you something for breakfast?” Maxine finally asks.

Paula settles on a plain turkey sandwich and the remainder of a bag of baby carrots. Maxine makes an extra sandwich for herself. After she dresses and packs for work, they walk out to her car together.

“So where do you want to go?” Maxine asks as she drums on the steering wheel.

“My hotel.”

“Will you be okay alone?”

“I need something quiet to think.”

Paula is staying in a hotel off Dupont Circle, and before dropping her off, Maxine is adamant in giving Paula her cell phone number.

“Call me if you need anything,” she says. Paula nods, and Maxine watches her in the rearview mirror as she drives away.

She arrives to work only slightly late and makes a beeline for Diana’s office. She don’t know how official this report is going to have to be, whether she’ll be pulled off the case, or not, but if she and Paula are in over their heads, Maxine wants them out before anyone else gets hurt.

Maxine doesn’t bother knocking but opens the door to find Diana on the phone, brow furrowed. She blinks owlishly when she sees Maxine and motions for her to sit down in one of the chairs flanking her desk. Whoever is on the other end of the line is doing most of the talking, Diana making little “mh-hm” noises occasionally.

“I’ll send some agents out immediately. We’ll talk soon,” she says as she puts the receiver back in its cradle with a thunk.

“That was the New York State police,” she says, looking Maxine in the eyes in such a piercing way that she feels momentary chills. “Three girls disappeared from a camping trip upstate last night. It was kicked over to me because there are similarities with the Eugene Woods case.”

 “Three at a time?”

“Vanished in the middle of the night. No sign of a struggle or any kind of disturbance. No one else saw or heard anything.” She’s flipping through the handwritten notes she’s been taking on a legal pad. “This time I want to find them before they end up mutilated or worse.”

“Do you want me out there too?”

“Not yet. Not unless they find something significant for you to look at. Did you come in here to ask me something? How is Dr. Cohen?”

Maxine decides to jump right in. “We were attacked trying to meet with an informant.”

“Jesus Christ, Meyers. What on earth were you doing?”

“We were supposed to meet with someone but were ambushed instead.”

“Did you have your weapon?”

“Yes.”

“Did you fire?”

“Three times.”

“Jesus Christ,” Diana says again.

“Am I off the case?”

“Not after what happened in New York. I want you looking at whatever they find. But Maxine, leave the investigating to our field agents before you get yourself killed.”

“Am I in trouble?”

“I’m thinking it over.”

* * *

The woman is reading the latest briefing when she receives the call.

“The leak has been contained.”

“How certain are you?”

“Fairly certain.”

“Be completely certain.”

She lights a cigarette and takes a long drag.  _A filthy habit_ , her husband would say.  _You’ll burn up your lungs._ He’s dead now, so it does not matter what he would or would not think. She’s the one still alive.

* * *

Once Paula closes the door of her hotel room behind her, she feels incredibly small. It’s like she’s dislodged in time: all she needs to do is close her eyes for a second too long, and she’s back outside the Comansys office being showered with broken glass. She’s got all the shades down, windows closed, room light on, and she wonders if she’ll ever feel safe enough to go outside again.

The logical part of her brain knows this is just trauma, but it doesn’t stop the way her skin crawls.  _You knew it was a trap, and you walked into it anyway._

For the second time in her life, she has no idea what to believe. This trip to America had her best shot at answers, and she had been inching closer to answers every day she’d worked with Dr. Meyers--no, Maxine, she corrects herself--only to have her hopes and convictions shattered like glass.

There was no UFO, no bright lights, no trace of an informant. The fact that someone had threatened her life in the course of this investigation is probably supposed to be an indicator that she’s on the right track, but all she feels is dread and powerlessness. Her one lead may not have existed at all. Her time and money are running out. Unless something major changes, she’ll have to return to England with nothing more than she left with. Files full of conjecture are one thing. Concrete proof and fact-based explanations are another.

At least she got to meet Maxine. As soon as she has the thought she’s chagrined. After everything that’s happened, it’s still somehow the most important thing.

She’s still too jittery to sleep so she checks her laptop. One item in her work inbox catches her eye, from one of the coworkers she considers closest to.

One line: “They want you back here.”

Paula swears under her breath. It feels like the clock has struck midnight.


	8. Amor Fati

Eight hours later Paula doesn’t feel like she’s gotten herself back together but calls Maxine anyway. She’d tried to sleep to mixed results. At one point she’d been eyeing the minibar before remembering, again, that the state of her internal organs meant alcohol was out of the question. 

She didn’t dream, at least. Small blessings.

Maxine answers her phone on the third ring.

“Hello?” she says. Then she says something to someone in the background, and for a second Paula swears she hears Veronica’s voice.

“It’s me. Paula. I got an e-mail from work. They want me to go back.”

“When?”

“I don’t know yet.”

“We got another abduction case this morning. Three girls disappeared.”

“Three at a time?”

“Yeah, my boss wants me on it if they find any evidence.”

“That doesn’t fit the pattern.”

“Maybe their M.O. is changing. You didn’t mention anyone missing limbs before Eugene’s case.”

“Do you want me to come in?”

 “No, I’m almost done. I can pick you up if you want. It’s Friday; we could get something to eat.”

“I’d like that.”

Maxine calls her half an hour later when she’s parked outside the hotel. It feels like an eternity since Maxine dropped her off this morning. She looks about the same, hair maybe a little more disheveled. She smiles when Paula crawls into the passenger seat and buckles her seatbelt.

They settle on a burger place near Foggy Bottom, and even though Maxine can’t have the fries or the cheese or the milkshakes, Maxine insists it’s gotten good reviews and that Paula should have actual American food while she’s here.

The hostess leads them to a table in the corner near some windows. It’s the tail end of the dinner rush, and several tables of college-aged kids are still chatting boisterously. It’s all in stark contrast to Paula’s current frame of mind.

“Do you think if you told your work about the new case, they’d let you stay?” Maxine asks.

“I don’t know.”

Maxine sips her hard iced tea. “I understand if you don’t want to. I’m surprised I wasn’t pulled off it after what happened.”

“You told your boss?”

“I had to. She still wants me to do my job but not get myself killed. Those were her words, not mine.”

“None of this has bothered you?”

“Of course it has, but I’ve been shot at before. I’ve seen a lot of things. I’ve been more worried about you.”

“Oh,” Paula says, and she doesn’t like how small her voice sounds.

Their conversation is interrupted by the arrival of their food, and Paula’s salmon burger is good enough to drive away her negative mood as she eats it.

“Anyway,” Maxine says between bites of her own turkey burger, “I’m sick of talking about work. How have you been doing, apart from the whole alien abduction investigation thing?”

“I thought you didn’t believe in my theories.”

“I’ll change my mind if we find evidence, just like any good scientist would.”

Paula chuckles. “In that case, I wanted to go out to Roswell and see if we could find anything.”

“If you can convince the FBI to fund that, I might go with you.” She takes another bite of her burger. “No, it’s the middle of summer. No way I’m going to the Southwest right now.”

“It can’t be much worse than here.”

“It’s an actual desert, and you’re from a country where people think 90 degrees fahrenheit is hot.”

 “Fair enough,” Paula says, although she can’t quite remember what that temperature is in celsius.

By the end of the meal, Maxine has gone through three and a half hard iced teas and is rather giggly. She and Paula split brownies for dessert, and Maxine insists on paying with a tap on Paula’s hand that makes her skin feel tingly. She still feels so on edge with everything that’s happened, and her nerves refuse to calm down, though at this moment, it’s not too bad.

“Are you okay to be driving?” Paula asks as they walk out to her car. Maxine had bumped into her, leaned on her for just a second, and Paula gets jittery all over again.

“Your hotel is close. I can take the metro back home.” She says.

To her credit, Maxine drives extra slowly, no doubt irritating the people stuck behind her.

“Do you mind if I use your room number for the hotel parking?” Maxine asks as they pull up to the hotel. “I’ll pick up my car tomorrow and pay you back, I swear.”

“Sure,” Paula says. Maybe they can spend time together again tomorrow. It beats having nothing to do but dialysis in the morning.

Paula holds open the hotel door as Maxine collects her purse and keys from the car. As she calls an elevator she notices Maxine is smiling absently.

“What?”

“I had a very nice dinner.”

“So did I.”

The elevator doors slide open.

“Even if it took an international conspiracy to meet, it was worth it.” Maxine says as they walk in.

“So you think it’s a conspiracy now too?”

“Your words, not mine.” She leans back against the elevator wall and crosses her arms across her chest.

It’s probably just the alcohol talking, but Paula feels herself smiling too.

They’re outside of her room when Maxine speaks up again. “You know, I’ll miss you when you’re gone.”

“I find that hard to believe.”

“Who’s the skeptic now? I mean it.”

Maxine lurches forward and puts a hand on the wall to brace herself. Paula knows she’s supposed to be concerned, but all she can think about now is how close Maxine’s face is. If she just reached out--

Maxine seems to have realized the same thing. She’s looking at Paula like she’s just won the Nobel Prize, reaches her hand out to place it lightly on Paula’s cheek, and Paula’s tilting her head and--

Maxine loses her balance and nearly falls backwards, Paula wraps her arms around her shoulders just before she falls to the floor. The moment has passed, and Paula realizes what a fool she’s being. How inappropriate this is. She helps Maxine regain her balance and withdraws her arms, taking several steps away.

“Will you be okay to go home alone?”

The near fall seems to have sobered Maxine up a bit. “Yeah...I’ll just take a taxi.”

“Thank you for dinner,” Paula says, careful to keep her tone neutral. “I’ll see you on Monday, then.”

“Yes,” Maxine says.

Paula turns to unlock her door and retreat into the safety of her hotel room before either of them can embarrass themselves further.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> real talk, DON'T DRINK AND DRIVE KIDS


	9. Deceive, Inveigle, Obfuscate

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> get ready for the most stylistically experimental chapter in the whole shebang

Maxine is floating in a sea of darkness.

She remembers getting in a taxi outside of the hotel and feeling very, very tired. There was a noise, a beautiful noise, and now she’s here, wherever here is. She doesn’t remember any more than that.

It feels like she’s on a boat. She was on a boat once, out on an ocean or a lake, sitting in the sunlight and feeling the water gently rock her back and forth. She can’t remember where or when that was. She can’t remember very much right now. She’d like to go sailing again someday, maybe with Paula. She likes Paula.

Maxine is falling now and jerks awake.

She read about this in a book once. _Hypnic jerk._ She doesn’t remember how she remembers that term. Some people think it’s a leftover from when people lived in trees. She read all of this in a book once.

Maxine opens her eyes. She can’t see very clearly, but she is in an enclosed space. It takes all her concentration to extend a shaky hand out in front of her, and it lands on a clear surface.

Maxine hears another noise, and suddenly she is very, very cold.

 

Maxine falls asleep and can feel or remember no more.

* * *

“She wasn’t there.”

“What?”

“Someone else took her before we got to her, M--

“No titles here.”

The woman sits back in her chair and eyes the man before her, one of her top operatives, with distaste. She can feel the rage stirring within her but ignores it. Anger is beneath her. Violence is beneath her.

“How did this happen?” she asks after a deliberate moment of silence.

“We’re determining that now.”

“Find her.”

“Yes.”

* * *

When Maxine doesn’t come to pick up her car Saturday or Sunday, Paula thinks little of it. Her absence saves them both awkwardness, and Paula has no reason to believe Maxine won’t make good on her promise to pay for parking. She just hopes that when they return to work on Monday things will return to normal.

Things do not return to normal on Monday. Maxine is nowhere to be found when Paula checks the FBI lab, which is still locked. Maxine’s own office is also locked. Paula tries calling her cell. No answer.

She decides Maxine is probably just running a little late and looks for some way to spend the next few empty minutes, but half an hour passes, and Maxine has still yet to appear. She decides to try Maxine’s boss.

Paula opens her door cautiously. She hasn’t been in this office before and has only had a few short conversations with Diana Santos, but she strikes Paula as the stereotypical American workaholic, albeit a bit less uptight. The way Maxine talks about her sometimes, it sounds like she’s always doing five things at once and never sleeps.

“Can I help you?” she asks when she notices Paula.

“Has Dr. Meyers called you?”

“No, why?”

“She’s not here, and I can’t reach her phone.”

Paula watches Diana call Maxine from her desk phone and watch as her eyes narrow. She begins dialing another number.

“I’ll send someone to check on her.”

“Thank you,” Paula says, but instead of relief, she just feels more worried.

The rest of the day is a blur to Paula. Maxine’s apartment is empty, and her landlord doesn’t remember if she was home at all over the weekend. Veronica hasn’t talked to her for days. She sits in Diana’s office as she talks to the local police, files a missing persons report. Dread gnaws the walls of Paula’s stomach, and she’s convinced this is somehow all her fault.

She can’t sleep when she goes back to the hotel. Police examine Maxine’s car, track down the cab she hailed. Paula has to answer some questions, but at this point the fact that they were spending time together at her hotel on a Friday evening has ceased to embarrass her. Hotel security cameras show Maxine getting into the taxi and driving away. The cab driver seems to check out. Nothing noteworthy is found in Maxine’s car.

Paula can’t sleep that night. She calls Interpol, but there’s not much they can do for her. She calls the city police, begging them to keep her informed. She starts exchanging rapid-fire e-mails with Diana, who, from what she can gather, is launching some kind of internal crusade to find Maxine. Paula falls asleep at the hotel desk before she can call the National Guard or the White House or CIA or whatever other government agency her increasingly desperate mind can think up.

The next few days are more of the same, and Paula feels like she’s drowning in the summer air. She has to keep herself occupied or she’ll start coming up with increasingly terrible explanations for what happened to Maxine. She’s dead in a ditch somewhere. She’s being held for ransom by terrorists. She’ll come back missing limbs and fingers and toes and then she’ll die in some gruesome way and Paula will never be able to tell her....

Tell her what? Ghosts don’t listen. Corpses don’t listen.

Paula finds herself absently wishing Maxine is here so she could get a prescription for Ambien and be able to sleep for more than an hour at a time.

She thinks she’s hallucinating from sleep deprivation when she gets another e-mail from Albert Goodall.

* * *

Paula is not a detective, or a spy, or a secret agent, or a hacker, or the kind of person remotely qualified to do any of this, but Paula is also someone who is desperate to save someone for whom she cares deeply, and that will have to be good enough.

Her fists are shaking when she returns to the Comansys office in the middle of the day. She has her satchel and approximately thirty minutes.

The glass wall that was shattered has already been replaced. Being here in the day is less terrifying, with people around who probably do not want to shoot her.

She walks purposefully into the lobby, explaining to the front desk staff that she has an appointment with the assistant director and walking briskly away to the elevator before anyone can ask her questions. The elevator is empty, and as she pushes the button for the top floor, she feels her pulse pounding in her ear.

The director’s receptionist is one of those impossibly tanned, fit, and thin women who spends more on a handful-sized portions of food and fitness classes than most families of four spend on food in a week. She crumples surprisingly easy with a little surprised noise when Paula jabs her in the gut and sprints past her into the director’s office, which, as predicted, is currently empty. She opens her satchel for the USB key, sticks it into the computer, and gasps softly when the screen flickers to life. The monitor rapidly flashes between spreadsheets, e-mails, and video footage. As soon as Paula hears footsteps outside the office, she yanks the USB key from the computer and stuffs it in her bra.

The receptionist is back, now with the building’s security and an important-looking man she assumes is the Comansys regional director. Paula’s heart feels like it’s going to explode.

The security guards grab her arms, and another searches her satchel to find nothing.

“I see Pandora Haze has yet to kill you,” says the director.

Paula would have spit at him if her mouth wasn’t so dry and she wasn't so surprised.

“Albert Goodall sends his regards,” is what she says. He blanches.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> no i totally didn't base this on spy movies instead of doing actual research what are you talking about


	10. The Truth is Out There

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> they finally kiss this time i promise

When Maxine wakes up, it seems to be from a long sleep. She still feels cold, but the sun on her face is warm. The air is fresh here, and she thinks she can hear birds in the distance.

Someone is touching her face.

Her eyes are very, very heavy, but something tells her it will be worth opening them.

She does so slowly to adjust to the brightness of the sunlight. At first her vision is blurry, but there is a face looking down at her, and as she focuses she realizes it is the face of someone she knows.

“....Paula?”

Paula looks like she’s about to cry. As Maxine reacquaints herself with the other woman’s face, she notices the dark circles under her eyes and how her hair is disheveled.

“Yes, Maxine. It’s me.” She smiles and the tears threaten to spill down her cheeks.

“Where....am I?” she tries to sit up but Paula places a hand on her shoulder.

“Don’t move too much yet. You just woke up.”

Maxine looks past her to figure out her surroundings. Somewhere industrial. There are big metal boxes all around them. Shipping containers?

“Where am I?” she asks again.

“Liverpool.”

“...England?”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

“It’s a very long story. But you’re safe now. You’re safe, Maxine. I promise.”

Maxine looks down at her body. She’s inside some kind of pod-shaped container, just big enough for her. The top part has been lifted open. She looks to her left. There are all sorts of people in the distance, and she recognizes an ambulance and some police cars, with people darting between them.

Then she notices another group of people in a less-official looking van. There’s a young man in an oversize orange hoodie talking to one of the police officers, and she swears she must be seeing things but has to ask anyway.

“Is that....Sam Yao?”

Paula looks over to where Maxine is staring.

“Yes,” Paula says. She’s smiling again. “He and his friends were very helpful in finding you.”

By this point, a few EMTs have wheeled a gurney over to Maxine. Maxine looks at them and back to Paula.

“We want you to go to the hospital for a while to make sure you’re okay.”

The EMTs lift Maxine out of her pod and onto a gurney, and Paula walks beside her the entire time. As she rolls away Maxine notices more pods like her, with people inside them who are also slowly waking up.

 “What happened?” Maxine tries again as they load her into the back of the ambulance.

“I’ll tell you everything when we get there,” Paula promises.

As they drive away, Maxine sees Sam Yao again, and this time he’s talking to two people who--well, the only way Maxine can explain it is they look like actual secret agents. One of them waves at the ambulance. Maxine lies back and falls asleep again.

 

When she wakes up, Maxine is in a softly lit hospital room. Paula is still there with her, sitting on a chair opposite the bed.

“Will you tell me what happened now?” Maxine asks.

“Yes,” Paula says. She puts away her phone and slides her satchel onto the floor. “You were taken. We don’t know by whom, but it doesn’t seem to be the same...people who took me.”

“There were other people.”

Paula nods. “They seem to be from different places from North America. The missing girls from New York are there. Your boss is in the shipyard now, helping to figure out who the rest are.”

“Diana is here?”

“Some other people from the FBI are as well. And the CIA. And Interpol.”

Maxine laughs. “She’s probably trying to make them go away.”

“The doctors are trying to figure out what happened to you. You were in a cryo stasis pod for several days, but you seem to have handled that well.”

“Will they let me do my own medical tests?”

Paula laughs.

“You’ll have to ask them yourself.”

There’s a knock on the door, and Diana steps in. Like Paula, she also looks sleep deprived and disheveled.

“My favorite medical examiner,” Diana says, “I was afraid I’d never see you again.”

“Paula was just telling me what happened. How did you find me?”

“Dr. Cohen did most of the work,” she says, and Maxine notices Paula shrink from embarrassment. “It’s quite amazing, from what she’s told me. I’m currently fighting with the CIA and Scotland Yard to try to recruit her.”

“After everything that’s happened, all I want is a vacation,” Paula says.

“I don’t blame you,” Diana says. She jumps to check her phone. “I have to call Washington, if you’ll excuse me,” and exits the room with the same brisk, purposeful walk Maxine has come to know so well.

“What did you do?” Maxine asks Paula once they’re alone again.

“Well,” Paula eyes the door, “I lost track of how many laws I broke trying to find you.”

“Really?”

“Really.”

“What else?”

“Corporate espionage, breaking and entering, hacking, top-secret e-mailing, a meeting with your President.” Paula chuckles. “I made that last one up.”

“That sounds very James Bond of you.”

“I-- You would have-- um,” Paula is suddenly flustered and checks her watch. She stops talking, waiting to assemble the words she wants.

“Come here,” Maxine says, and smiles when Paula gets up from her chair to walk to her bedside. “No, lean in closer.”

The second Paula is in range Maxine yanks her shoulders down so she’s close enough to kiss. Paula jumps and nearly falls onto the hospital bed but is soon kissing her back with equal enthusiasm.

“I wanted to do that before something else happened,” Maxine says when their lips finally part. She feels like she could die happy in her hospital bed at this moment, and judging from the blush spreading across Paula’s entire face, she feels the same way.

* * *

By the time Paula crosses the threshold of her current hotel room, she nearly faints fromrelief. This week has been absolute hell, and she can’t remember the time she got more than three hours of sleep at once. 

Maxine is safe, Maxine is alive, and at this moment Paula feels like she can live with every single thing she did to help find her.

More importantly, Maxine kissed her. As she changes into her pajamas and crawls into bed to fall asleep, this is what she thinks of.

 

She wakes up to the phone ringing and has to check the alarm clock by her bed to re-orient herself. Jet lag hasn’t helped. It’s 3AM, but she blindly reaches out to make the noise stop.

“Hello?” she says as she pulls the phone to her ear.

“May I speak to Dr. Cohen?”

Paula stifles a yawn. “Speaking.”

“This is Jerry. Netrophil appreciates your work and wishes to congratulate you.”

The line goes dead.

“Hello?” Paula asks, but the only answer she gets is the dial tone.

She falls asleep again, wondering how much she truly understands.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> that's it! you made it to the end! thank you for reading. 
> 
> i realize you probably still have a lot of questions but hell so do i


End file.
